YOU COULD LOOK IT UP

by William Safire ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 8, 1988

The old nattering naysayer is at it again with the fifth gathering of his weekly New York Times columns, ""On Language,"" augmented with erudite letters from reader-writers. Taking time from his labors as a ""political haranguer,"" as he puts it, the quondam arbiter in the vineyards of the word again conducts a lively symposium on the proper usage of the mother tongue. The author is not always right, but he is pretty certain. He likes some awful neologisms (one of Satire's pearls: MEGO, for ""my eyes glaze over""). Other innovations he disdains--the advent of product names that are dolled up in fancy typography makes him wax wroth. Some matters never really get settled. When to use ""that"" or ""which"" is with us again, as muddled as before. Infinitives are, for all Satire cares, to be disjoined according to taste. Magnanimously, the Word Maven allows his correspondents lots of space in which to sit on his lapses. It's best laid ""schemes,"" not ""plans,"" and it's Kafka who brought us to Amerika, they'll tell him. They are ready to supply the derivation of ""no more Mr. Nice Guy"" or of ""pogey-bait."" It's more entertaining, however, when they don't agree. Misplaced commas produce commotions, not comas, and Satire and his crew don't take misplaced modifiers lightly, either. There are letters to The Authority from a lot of smarty-pants, including word stars like ""Jim (Michner)"", ""Russell (Baker)"", and the ever-ready ""Jacques (Barzun)."" There's nothing from ""Sam (Johnson),"" but there are general usage roles from clause wits and some street slang from word-wise guys who take pens in hand and zap the author with friendly notes off the old word processors. Workers of the word unite to complete Satire's sprightly text. Naturally, much of the material derives from the political arena, and the book ends with an early review of the oratory of the 1984 presidential campaign. Here's another one, then, by the popular linguistic interlocutor and his end men and women for the Gotcha Gang and other devoted pickers of nits. Withal, for the bookish browser, the Word Maven still has his wits about him.

Pub Date: Aug. 8, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Times Books

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION